Scraping a driveway--does it deserve a warning letter?

JonFrum

Member
here are the dominos that necessitate a warning letter...Follow along... Customer claims damage and UPS liability (IF they did not, none of the following occurs).....Liability means the center must notify the insurance company to take care of the claim - this is done by reporting the accident....now that there is an accident it must be clarified as avoidable or unavoidable....yes, by UPS standards this could have been avoided. Because there is now liability leading to reporting - there is an accident leading to avoidability....And finally to ensure standards are uniform in the center all avoidable accidents receive a warning letter. Happens all the time....

You forgot to mention the most important domino: Management needs to deliberately choose to make a mountain out of a mole hill. Without that attitude, nothing significant would come of this incident.

It's like when a guy in a bar starts a fight because someone accidently brushed against him. The guy has to enter the bar with a chip on his shoulder in the first place. If he didn't bring the attitude, the situation wouldn't escalate.
 

stevetheupsguy

sʇǝʌǝʇɥǝndsƃnʎ
In any case, this debate over the merits of a warning letter has now been rendered a moot point.

I scraped the driveway on Friday, September 10th. I was told that I would be getting a warning letter, but it has not yet been issued to me. Per the contract, warning letters must be issued within 10 business days from the date when the incident is reported. The 10 business days have now elapsed. They can still issue the letter if they wish, but at this point it is not timely and will not be valid for the purposes of progressive discipline.

Perhaps that is the best possible outcome. I will be charged with an accident and have to wait another year to get a 14 yr safe-driving pin...which is reasonable....but I will not have my job threatened over what amounts to a ground-clearance incident.
I thought an accident utomatically dropped you to year one again. Whatever the case, who cares about pins and awards? Aren't they based on dubious metrics as well?
 

UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)

Well-Known Member
I thought an accident utomatically dropped you to year one again. Whatever the case, who cares about pins and awards? Aren't they based on dubious metrics as well?

Once you pass 5 years safe driving and have an accident you stay at your current year and will start accumlating safe driving years again if you remain accident free for the year following the accident.
 

The Blackadder

Are you not amused?
Heck in my building they give out warning letters for having the key on the wrong finger, if you dont have it on the little finger you get a letter. Now I mean of all the dumbs things I have heard this one had to take the cake.

Does carrying the key on your ring finger slow you down? No in fact I am forever dropping my key off my little finger. Is it safer? No.


So why the letters, you are not following the work methods we teach. This is the answer we get no logic, no reason.
 

MobileBA

Well-Known Member
Yes you deserve a warning letter. Over sized and over 70lbs you should have been patient and waited for teamster help and delivered it from the street. As far as complaining you would have had to work around it. You make a fairs day wage, deal with it for a day and make some old fashion overtime.
 

UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)

Well-Known Member
Yes you deserve a warning letter. Over sized and over 70lbs you should have been patient and waited for teamster help and delivered it from the street. As far as complaining you would have had to work around it. You make a fairs day wage, deal with it for a day and make some old fashion overtime.

Sober made the right call by trying to dump the Over 70. It would have made the rest of his day easier as he wouldn't have had to work around it all day. Hindsight is always 20/20 but he should have stayed on the street and used his handcart as best he could.

If you read a few of his posts you will see that he makes more overtime in a week than I do in a month. The last thing he wants to do is sit for two hours and wait for someone to help him.
 

TheDick

Well-Known Member
If I told my center team mgmnt i was gonna wait for help, they'd either tellme to bring it back or go back later when help was available. Ofcourse i'd have to tell them bfore leaving the center what over 70's i'd need help with. Other-wise? You guessed it warning letter
 

thessalonian13

Well-Known Member
this was a high-class neighborhood, and the customer was at home when it happened. He wasnt a jerk about it, but he did take pictures and he does expect it to be fixed. I cant say that i blame him. I reported it immediately, of course.

Contrast this with another customer i have on the rural area of my route. His driveway is 1/4 of a mile long, and joins the road on a blind corner. The driveway goes up at about a 40 degree angle. There is no shoulder on this road, hence no place to safely park. The only way to make the delivery is to drive up there.

Both the road and the customers driveway have deep gouges and scrapes on them from many years of vehicles going up and down. I have been scraping the bottom of my bumper on the way in and out of that stop for the last 16 years. So does the fed ex truck, and so does the customers personal farm truck. When i first bid the route i would report it, but i was told not to bother any more because it was inevitable, it wasnt damaging the truck, and the customer was aware of the situation and did not care since he scraped it too.

Its pretty easy to preach the mantra of "stay out of driveways" from behind a desk. Its also pretty easy to proclaim that any damage caused by the vehicle ought to be a chargeable accident. Both theories tend to fall a bit short when you try to implement them out there in the real world.
i would walk that 1/4 mile every day till they take that warning letter away..... after you kill your sporh and making them take a bunch of stops of you they will be more than happy to take the warning letter out of your file.
 

slantnosechevy

Well-Known Member
In our local warning letters for minor accidents don't stick. The union's position is and will always be...."It was an accident". The company can judge an accident anyway they see fit. How many steak knives do you need? Bottom line is you have to know your limitations as well as the equipment you're operating. Sober I'm a little surprised to hear you whining about something that you clearly were at fault.
I witnessed a FedEx driver pull his van into a medical group and park under a steel awning everyday just to deliver his 2 envelopes. One day he was driving a box truck with a van cab. He came in as usual and proceeded to take out this steel awning as well as the entire glass front of the building as well as the glass doors. $56,000 later he was out of a job. According to his replacement he didn't think it was his fault because he was used to driving a van.
 

sosocal

Well-Known Member
In any case, this debate over the merits of a warning letter has now been rendered a moot point.

I scraped the driveway on Friday, September 10th. I was told that I would be getting a warning letter, but it has not yet been issued to me. Per the contract, warning letters must be issued within 10 business days from the date when the incident is reported. The 10 business days have now elapsed. They can still issue the letter if they wish, but at this point it is not timely and will not be valid for the purposes of progressive discipline.


Perhaps that is the best possible outcome. I will be charged with an accident and have to wait another year to get a 14 yr safe-driving pin...which is reasonable....but I will not have my job threatened over what amounts to a ground-clearance incident.

and this is how a manager who did not think it actually warrants a warning letter saves face...Forgot to send it....a procedural glitch that does not set precident (for those that have real accidents...)
 
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